Costumes

Saturday, 19 December 2015

My Eldest just turned
four. Before I had children I never really considered how important birthdays
are to the parents, but now I couldn’t help but reflect on what have happened
these four years, how sweet and adorable he was as a baby and toddler, and what
a special little person he is today. I wonder what kind of man he will grow up
to be, and hope I can guide and inspire him to always strive to be his best self.

Last week he had his
first ever birthday party for others than family members, and a handful of
children were invited. Having seen it on Peppa Pig (a huge favourite with both boys
at the moment), he wanted a fancy dress party. He wished to dress as Peter Pan,
and who am I to refuse a request on a costume?

I wanted to work from my
stash, but had very little green fabric there. After considering for a bit I
realised I had a green worn out knit top that had seen a lot of wear the past
four years, as it provided easy access for breastfeeding babies.

I cut off the
sleeves and turned them into trouser legs, with a gusset between them. In the
end they reminded me a little of the Thorsbjerg trousers, but without feet.

They are held up by an elastic at the waist.

For the tunic and cap
I recycled an old cotton blend half circle skirt. The whole outfit was made with the measure-and-cut
method, using one of Eldest’s t-shirts
as a cutting guide for the tunic.As my sewing machine
seem to have given up on life, I had to stitch the cap and tunic by hand, something
I've been trying to stop doing, except with historical clothing.

The cap is self-fabric
lined for a bit of body. It has a “feather” made from some polyester-y fabric scraps,
remains from when I made cushion covers a few years back. It’s stiffened with a
piece of zip tie, and the edges of the two layers of fabric was then molten together
over a candle. It makes a much more play friendly and endurable feather than a
real one would have been, plus I already had the materials for it. The cap sits
so well on the head that my boy can hold his head upside down without it
falling off.

The tunic is cut on
the bias, with pointed edges on both hem and sleeves. The collar is pretty standard, being made from two layers of fabric, and then top stitched.

All the edges of the tunic were faced with narrow self-fabric bias tape, and
all seam allowances folded in on themselves and neatly whip stitched.

When the costume was
finished and it was time to try it on, Eldest said that he needed a belt, like
Peter Pan has. I didn’t have one short enough for him, but a thin braided belt
wrapped twice around his waist worked well. For the pictures he also wore his
medieval shoes – they are already on the small side, he’ll need new ones next
year. The costume on the other hand is a bit too large, so he can use it for a long time.

He was really happy
with how the costume came out (though pretending to be angry in the above picture), and I couldn’t have been given greater praise
than his happy and excited face when he tried it on.

Friday, 4 December 2015

Before last week, I’d
never made an Empire/Regency dress. Imagine that. I love the period, but for
some reason I felt intimidated by them, which is funny, as I’ve made lots of
far more advanced and complicated things. Mind, I have made a shortgown, which
is basically the same thing, only, well, shorter. But I’m rambling.

Picture by Pernilla Leijonhufvud

Recently I was invited
to attend a small event at a local museum, and though I could have whipped up a
petticoat to use with said shortgown, I really wanted a dress. I had a cotton
fabric with an almost handwoven look to it that I wanted to use. That would
work well, as I wanted to portray the housekeeper of the middle class house we
were to be in. The stripes reminded me of the ones in ordinary Swedish women's extant dresses from the period. They were quite often made from linen/wool, but cotton is also represented.

Just
two problems: the fabric only measured 150x210 cm, and I only had one week in
which to make the dress. That’s one week where cutting, fitting and sewing had
to be completed around all the things stay at home parents of little children
do.

I used the pattern I
drafted for the shortgown as a starting point, but changed it into a drop
front. And then it was the cutting. I only had two rather short skirt lengths
of fabric, and both bodice and sleeves had to come from the two pieces on
either side of the shaped front skirt panel. As it is cold this time of year, I
wanted long sleeves, or things would have been much easier. This is indeed a
little sister of The Insanely Pieced Dress I made a few years ago:

The bodice back is
made from two pieces, picture of that further down. The bodice fronts are
made from 4 pieces each:

The bodice “bib” is
made from three pieces:

The sleeves are made
from 4 and 6 pieces respectively, not counting the bias strips at the wrists:

In the end these are all the scraps that were left:

Naturally I hand sewed
the dress, using waxed linen thread (unbleached where it wouldn’t show, and
brown for the rest) and period stitches. I lined the bodice and sleeves of the
dress with unbleached linen. I might not have lined the sleeves had not all
that piecing in them needed some protection from wear.

I did my best to make
the direction of the stripes follow the bodice as seen in extant dresses, and am rather happy with how it came out.

The bib is pinned in place with reproduction brass pins. I put a pleat near each end
of the bib to make it shape itself around the bust nicely. I still haven’t
decided if I’ll stitch them down to make darts or leave them as they are.

The sleeves are
pleated at the back of the shoulders, and are full enough at the wrists to pull
on without any closures. A tuck at the elbow (seen above in the picture of the piecing) provide a little extra room for
movement. The bias strips are decorative, but their primary function is adding well
needed length. The sleeves are still slightly too short, but they will do.

The skirt is smooth in front, and the ties on the front
part of the skirt runs through stitched bars by the back seams, and then ties
in front, under the skirt.

The skirt is cartridge pleated in the back. A small pad prevents the
skirt falling in at the small of my back, and also supports the ties of the
skirt front and any apron that might be worn. I added tapes to the inside of
the bodice back to tie in the front, as I didn’t think the bodice lining did a
good enough job to keep the bodice back tight to the body. The fine white
cotton ties are too fine for this kind of dress – it was still a rather fancy
material here in Sweden – but it’s what I had at hand. At least they won’t
show.

I faced the skirt hem
with a cotton/linen tape I wove a couple of years ago – facings are brilliant
when you don’t really have any skirt length to sacrifice on hems, and it’s a period
way to finish them. The tape too is pieced – it was initially used as 18th
century style ties in a hobbit skirt, and are in four pieces.

In the end I managed
to get the dress wearable in time for the event, if not completely finished,
hence the mitts in some of the pictures - the sleeves were not yet hemmed. Now
however, it’s all done!

Picture by Pernilla Leijonhufvud

I really like how it
came out, and enjoy wearing it. Now I'm really keen to make more Empire dresses. The pictures with the mitts are from the event at the museum, the ones without were taken today, when the weather finally allowed me to document the finished dress.

I haven’t had time to
participate in the HSM for a while, but this dress fit the last challenge of
the year.

The Challenge: # Re-Do

What Challange/s are you re-doing?:
# 2 Blue (the dress has a lot of blue in it), # 3 Stashbusting (everything came
from my stash), # 5 Practicality (it is very much a dress to work in), #6 Out
of Your Comfort Zone (first time making a dress of this period), # 10 Sewing
Secrets (lots of almost invisible piecing).

Fabric: Rather heavy weight, plain
weave cotton and linen.

Pattern: My own.

Year: 1810’s.

Notions: Two kinds of linen thread,
three kinds of cotton or cotton/linen tape, cotton batting.

How historically accurate is it?
Pretty much. Materials, pattern and sewing is rather good.

Hours to complete: Difficult to say…
estimated somewhere between 25-30 – the piecing took quite a bit of time to get
nice.

First worn: For a small museum event
last Saturday.

Total cost: Nothing at this time, as
everything came from my stash. The main fabric and the brown linen sewing
thread were originally a gift, the linen fabric was left over from a previous
project, and two of the tapes were recycled from other clothes.

Saturday, 28 November 2015

So I had a little more to post about the Harry Potter party, but was a bit burned out on the whole thing. Now finally, here it is.

Potions and potion
ingredients

It would be a sad
magical home that did not have potions and ingredients for making them. I had a
very limited budget for this party, so I couldn’t invest in bottles and jars in
cool shapes, but had to use what could be found at home. Luckily it had been a
while since I disposed of the glass recycling, so I could find quite a few
acceptable (though not great) jars and bottles there.

I removed the labels
from all my glass containers. I then designed new ones for them, using labels I
found on the internet as a starting point, and edited them in Paint – basic as
can be.

Some of the names of
apothecaries, potions and ingredients are found in the books or films, but some I made up. I tried to pick things that might reasonably be found in your ordinary
wizarding home, so there was no Polyjuice Potion, Felix Felicis, Amortentia or
similar to be found here. For volumes and weights I used the old imperial units,
as wizards did not convert to the metric system when the rest of the UK began
to do so. Also, I didn’t age the bottles as much as you often see done for
Halloween, as I wanted them to look like they are in regular use; a bit stained
and with torn labels, but not completely dusted over and covered in cobwebs.

As for the actual
content of the jars and bottles, I used several things. I began collecting and drying
plants in June or July. Some of them were historically thought to have magical
or medicinal properties, and some have proven medicinal uses. That makes it
extra fun. Others just looked so cool or weird, I just had to add them, either
under their own, borrowed, or made up names. Some of them I later found listed among
potion ingredients in the Harry Potter world.

I also used shampoo,
coloured water (in some cased thickened with potato starch), coloured sugar,
and similar things to give different effects.For the more
interesting jars I put in toy lizards, borrowed from my eldest son, real
eggshells (left over from cooking) that I had dyed several times to give them
an interesting pattern, and a dead beetle I found outside my house last summer.
That last one is a bit creepy, but it did add to the look.

Plants

To decorate the
windows I made some undefined kind of plants (not devil’s snare – that’s
decidedly not a plant you want to have in your kitchen) using brown packing
paper – left over pieces from making dress patterns - as a base. I wetted it,
crunched it up a few times, then twisted it into shape, let it dry and painted
it. Then I wrapped plastic vines (originally used to decorate for our wedding
reception) round them, and tacked them to the walls and roof. I “planted” them
in copper pots – every true Hufflepuff will know that both plants and copper is
seen a lot in the Hufflepuff common room, so it’s a nice nod to ”my” house. Go Badgers!

I also made a small hothouse in a glass bell jar.

Improvised noticeboard

We hid our fridge and
freezer behind drapes, as they just looked too Muggle to bear. They are suck typical places to stick notices to, but I stuck
ads, coupons and the like – all with a mundane but magical theme – to a permanently closed
door. These would-be cut-outs were a mix of me altering some picture or other, in
a similar fashion to the labels above, and using pictures found online as they
were.

It looked nice enough, but I think I’ll eventually need to get a proper
notice board – a pretty one.

Post Owl

Because naturally you
just have to have one. I hope to find a really realistic one some time,
but until then this one will do. I’d want a cage too. Ornamental cages seem to
be a home decorating fashion right now, so I should hopefully be able to pick one
up for next to nothing once the fad passes,

and people are sick of
them cluttering up their storage.

I also put books, goblets, jars, cauldrons, quills and other odd stuff on top of the cupboards, for visual interest. Both me and hubby being nerds in several areas makes finding such items around the house a simple task.

And that was the last
post on this subject, promise. At least for this year.